St. Thomas VI Adventures

St. Thomas is a beautiful place to visit. People are friendly, of course, most of them are Americans. And everyone down in the Caribbean are very sick over the New Orleans people not getting the help they should have gotten from our President. In fact... they still feel the same as they did a year ago when I was there.. They HATE Bush!

Let me tell you about our adventures....

We landed in time for happy hour on Friday evening. We got to our B&B, which was in Charlotte Amalie, the capital, and we weren't very impressed with our accommodations. We put our flip flops on, and headed to the shopping area. Grabbed a couple of Carib beers and started walking. Drenched in sweat, we walked to Frenchtown, and headed for our first meal, at Craig and Sally's restaurant. We started with a glass of Washington state wine, Duck Pond, Pinot Noir, and ordered their signature appetizer that is a staple on the menu. This restaurant, and the appetizer were highly recommended by Chowhound.com members. We ordered the eggplant cheesecake appetizer. At first, I was relunctant to try this dish.. But quickly changed my tune when I took my first bite. I could hear C making little noises as she began eating it. It was the most awesome dish I have ever tried in my life. Light, a kiss of eggplant in a light fluffy cheesecake mold. It was so good in fact, that C asked for the recipe, which obviously is the norm there, because the waiter handed her a printed out recipe. LOL! C ordered the grilled tuna steak, stacked on top of blackened potato salad with mango chutney.
I ordered the sea bass, stacked on top of sweet seaweed salad, beneath a fried soba noodle pancake, and a hint of duck sauce, drizzled with sirachi sauce around the plate. It was totally mind boggling to taste the different tastes in a stacked dish. Sally is the chef, and she treats her kitchen like a canvas. Everyday is a new menu, with new tapas, main courses, desserts. Never the same thing twice. We met Sally and graciously adorned her with compliments at her artistry of food combinations.
We finished off with a fruit cobbler that melted in your mouth.

We walked back to downtown, stopping in a bar that one of the waiters had suggested. There, we met Paul, a CT Yankee that traveled to St. Thomas 8 yrs ago, and never returned. He told us about a woman on Water Island that cooks only on Saturday night, and said, "you can't miss this adventure."
He gave us the name of Heidi, on Water Island, and told us we had to call her in the morning and tell her we're coming for dinner.

Saturday, we switched hotels and landed at Elysian Resort on Cowpet Bay.

I snorkeled all day long. I swam out and first thing I saw was a large brown starfish. I swam around the bend, and found an underwater gulch. I swam amongst millions of fish, every color of the rainbow. Every species I could identify. Blue, yellow, lime green, red corals.. A sea turtle came to check me out. Little yellowish, brown, checkered turtle. Must have been a juvenile.
We ate at Robert's Bistro on the beach at the resort, eating grouper sandwich's and drinking Carib beer.
Saturday night, we took a cab to Crown Bay Marina and bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store in the marina, and took the ferry over to Water Island. This is a private island, with 150 permanent residents. We got off the ferry, and had to walk up a hill, and over to the other side of the island. And there it was... the most beautiful secluded lagoon, with a white beach and tons of HUGE coconut palms.

They call it, Honeymoon Cove. It faced west, so the waters were like glass. From the top of the hill we could see rays, and fish, and corals, in the clearest, bluest water you could imagine. We walked down a path to the beach, put our stuff on a picnic table, next to Heidi's truck that had a bar, and bbq grill.. She was playing smooth jazz and it echoed all over the beach, and little tea lights everywhere. I jumped in the water immediately and swam out to the reef. C waded into the water and began talking to a couple of older women that lived there. They told her the history of the island, and about cisterns and tropical breezes that were so strong, they rarely used A/C.
When we were getting hungry, we both came out of the water, sprayed ourselves with bug spray and began to party with the locals. We met a variety of people, and as the sun began to set, more residents came down to the beach for dinner, bringing with them, linen tablecloths, candleabra's, wine... Pretty soon, the beach filled up with an interesting group of people.
We ordered our dinner, and fell in love with everyone, the beach, the sunset, the ambience. There we were, two strangers amongst a bunch of islanders, sitting at picnic tables, on the beach, ready for dinner. C got a stuffed chicken breast, filled with fresh spinach, feta, and black olives, with a liberal sprinkling of toasted pine nuts and fruited rice pilaf. I ordered the mussels and shrimp in a curry sauce, atop linguini. We opened our wine, but then, one of the residents, began pouring me glasses of his "reserve."
We danced in the sand, sang along with the music, profusely complimenting Heidi of her wonderful dinner on china, not paper plates.
She only cooks on Saturday nights, and you have to phone in your order in the morning, so she knows how much to buy.
Our new friend, Stu, drove us to the ferry dock in his golfcart (the only way these residents get around) and we said good bye to everyone, and then the ferry took us back to the marina.

Sunday, we went to Magen's Bay and swam with rays and turtles.. Spent the day drinking beer in the ocean. C kept feeling fish hitting her with their heads. I just swam along, looking for shells and starfish. Magen's Beach is supposed to be in the top 4 most beautiful beaches in the world. It was beautiful. I think I got some photo's of it.

Sunday night, we got back to the resort, and jumped in a taxi and went to Sapphire Beach for a sunset cruise on a 65 foot sloop.
With 25 other's, we were greeted with champagne and strawberries.. We all had to take off our shoes before boarding. We got out in the open waters, and one of the crew began walking around with brushetta topped with smoked salmon, capers, caviar. We ate, and drank and then they brought out the "painkillers".. LOLOL! It's some kind of crazy rum concoction that tasted like a pina colada, drenched in rum. Whoa! Most everyone got ripped.
The captain anchored in Christmas Cove, off St. John Island, and we watched the sun set, and ate a full course meal. There was lamb, turkey, green bean salad, pasta salad, caesar salad, crab legs, peel and eat shrimp, (trying to remember). We ate, and drank and the sun went down, and nobody noticed. Then most of us layed down on our backs on the deck and looked up at the stars. We counted 6 or 7 satellites, and 4 shooting stars. Everyone was much younger than C and I..... We had a great time with them. When we got back to the dock, drunk, happy, singing beach boy tunes... the taxi took us back to the resort, and there, we all jumped in the pool.
Monday morning, half of that gang, and other's from other resorts, met at the dock the following morning for a snorkeling cruise on the same sloop. As soon as we got on board, the Painkillers started, and champagne began flowing, and a very spicey bloody mary.
He took us first over to Caneel Beach on St. John, and we snorkeled with rays, and turtles, and lots and lots of fish. I have photo's of a turtle that swam beneath me. (on my underwater camera). C and I chased turtles for an hour.. Then we went back to the ship, and had an amazing lunch. Ribs, meatballs, pasta salad, cole slaw, greenbean salad, and fruit.
Then they pulled up anchor and took us to another cove. Same cove we were in for our sunset cruise. We swam there, but it was pretty stark. Even the coral had been trampled pretty badly.
We got back to shore at 4pm, and everyone went to their rooms to crash.
C and I got up around 7ish, and went to Red Hook for dinner. We ate at Off The Hook restaurant in the marina, and we had an amazing dinner. Huge portions of fish.
C ordered a tuna steak, and I had the yellowtail snapper. Both came with fruit salsa's and rice. We ate, barely keeping our eyes open. Got back in a cab, and went back to the resort. Crashed early.
Monday morning, we jumped on a ferry to St. John Island, and walked around and did a little shopping. Had an amazing lunch at this deli. We split a sandwich of roasted chicken breast with avocado mayonnaise. It wasn't cold cuts either! It was a succulent piece of chicken breast. We also split a dish of broccoli slaw with fruit in it.. It was divine. Headed back to the mainland, grabbed a cab to the resort, checked out, and headed for the airport.

At the airport, we had hot dogs and rum and passion fruit punch.
Got into Miami, and Maggie was there waiting for us. She missed us!

Arrived back at C's house, and I made a great big vegetable salad for us. We really missed vegetables. We didn't get enough. They said, that vegetables are hard to come by, and that they're not fresh when they get to the islands.

All in all, the weather was fantastic. C almost stepped on an iguana on the beach.. They roam the beaches like squirrels. They climb up in the palm trees to nap, fall out when they fall asleep. Its really quite funny.
Rum oozes out of every nook and cranny on the island, mostly free. Everywhere we went, it was all about Painkillers and rum and diet coke.

The only people that tried to rip us off were the cabbies. They all have their own price for taking you from ferry to ferry.
The B&B we stayed in in town, I wouldn't recommend, unless you like to camp.
If you like A/C and space, and walking out of your room, onto a beach, we stayed at the Elysian Resort in Cowpet Bay.
Food was on the high side, but that's because it's all imported, except for the local fish, and fruit, and booze.
I highly recommend the off shore excursions like the ones we took. Great deal for food, taking you snorkeling, and booze.
The sky in the islands is polluted with stars.. So many stars, such black skies.
The water is just like you see in the movies. Turquoise, clear, breaming with fish and reptiles.
And everywhere you look there are iguana's. They're cute, in their own, ugly way. They even smile at you.
And you MUST try the native drink "Bushwacker." YUM! that's where I gained my 7 lbs.. I just know it.

I'm happy to be home. I would go back there in a heartbeat. I'd like to stay in Secret Harbor next time, or a bungalow on Water Island.
I would eat in all the places I ate in this trip, I'd eat in them again.
But I think I would skip the hot dog at the airport.